ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer will speak Feb. 21 as part of the Association of the U.S. Army’s Coffee Series.

The event will take place at AUSA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The event opens at 7 a.m. with registration, coffee and networking. The program is scheduled to begin at 7:45 a.m., which is half an hour later than typical Coffee Series events.

It is free for military members, government employees and the media.

A House subcommittee working on the 2024 defense policy bill has allowed a 5.2% across-the-board military pay raise in addition to several other improvements in pay and compensation.

The military personnel subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee proposes recalculating Basic Allowance for Housing payments for junior enlisted members and wants to increase the Basic Needs Allowance established last year by slightly changing how it is calculated.

The Association of the U.S. Army is urging key lawmakers to approve additional funding in the fiscal 2024 budget to support the Army’s transformation programs.

“We believe it is essential for the Army and the Department of Defense (DoD) to have the resources it needs to counter growing threats and to ensure the continued excellence of the all-volunteer force,” retired Gen. Bob Brown, AUSA president and CEO, writes in a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

The White House announced Jan. 31 that the 14th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation will take a closer look at the adequacy of pay and benefits for dual-income households. 

“The unique factors affecting military household incomes might require structural changes, to include the development of a new benchmark for military compensation,” says a memorandum from President Joe Biden establishing the review. 

The Association of the U.S. Army has joined with six other defense-related associations in an appeal to the White House for a 3% to 5% increase in the fiscal year 2022 and 2023 defense budgets. 

An Aug. 4 letter to President Donald Trump says the flat fiscal year 2021 defense budget pending before Congress leaves the services “in an unenviable position of trading off legacy programs to fund future modernization. Those programs will not be fielded and available to the warfighters for several years. That jeopardizes our nation today and in the future.” 

A 3% pay raise for soldiers that would go into effect Jan. 1 is looking more like a sure thing as a House panel overseeing military personnel policy has now joined the Senate Armed Services Committee in backing a raise that is slightly better than the average private sector compensation in the last 12 months.

If enacted into law, the 3% raise would apply to basic pay, drill pay and any bonuses or special pays that are based on multiples of basic pay. This is the amount requested by DoD and White House.

Service members serving on the front lines of the COVID-19 fight could soon qualify for extra pay and individual or unit awards, the military’s top officer said.

There is “very active discussion” in the Pentagon on a policy and way ahead, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark Milley said May 28 during a virtual town hall.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Ramon Colon-Lopez, the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman, also participated in the event.

The Army National Guard has fully transitioned to the Army’s modernized human resources system, becoming the first component to make the leap from a 1970s-era system of delays and lost paperwork to an electronic system accessible quickly and remotely by every soldier.

The Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army (IPPS-A) is an online, data-driven human resources system that combines personnel, pay and talent management capabilities into a single place. On March 24, there were 331,000 National Guard soldiers using it live, officials said.

Congressional negotiators have approved a $738 billion defense policy bill that provides a 3.1% military raise and orders reforms in military housing, personal property shipments, child care and dependent education.

The final bill authorizes a Regular Army of 480,000 soldiers, with 336,000 soldiers in the Army National Guard and 189,500 in the Army Reserve.